The Pabst Theater group kicked off the week with four new show announcements for 2013 spanning from Billboard-topping alt rockers to fuzzy kid show stars.

Rob Thomas’ alternative rock group Matchbox Twenty, whose first album in 10 years, “North,” debuted at the top of the Billboard 200 in September, is coming to the Riverside Theater, 116 W. Wisconsin Ave., Feb. 9. Tickets are $39.50 to $75. | Nov. 12, 2012»Read Full Article

Saw Wee (left) plays the keyboard while Jonathan Burks (right) handles the guitar while rehearsing at Burks’ apartment in Milwaukee. Saw Wee will perform some of his songs Saturday at Hope Lutheran Church in Milwaukee.

In the night, Saw Wee said he could see them. In his dreams he'd see his lifelong friends. He'd see his home in Kler Kee, a jungle village in Karen State, near the Thailand border in Myanmar. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

Niki Johnson, a sculptor and conceptual artist, has been selected as the Pfister Hotel's sixth artist in residence.

In April, Johnson will begin a year working in the hotel's artist studio, just off the lobby of the hotel at 424 E. Wisconsin Ave., and also will guide guests through the hotel's Victorian-style art collection. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

Eric Church's "The Outsiders" - a strong early contender for best country album of the year - already has fans and critics alike buzzing over its creative exploration of new sounds and bold storylines. (Read my TapMilwaukee review here.)

Maybe the real reason Lorrie Moore moved south from Wisconsin to Tennessee was the weather.

In "The Juniper Tree" — one of eight stories comprising "Bark," Moore's first collection since "Birds of America" (1998) — the narrator describes a just-deceased friend's "haphazardly" planted yard, filled with trees and shrubs consigned to a "latitude" that "was not the best gardening zone" for any of them. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Science Fiction and Fantasy. By Jo Walton. Tor. 448 pages. $26.99

What makes Jo Walton's new book, "What Makes This Book So Great," so great indeed is that it champions adults reading for pleasure, and in Walton's case rereading for pleasure.

"I am talking about books because I love books," she writes. "I'm not standing on a mountain peak holding them at arm's length and issuing Olympian pronouncements about them. I'm reading them in the bath and shouting with excitement because I have noticed something that is really really cool." | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

This may be one of our coldest winters on record, but in the mystery world things are heating up. Last month Isabel Allende, author of a slew of bestselling novels, proclaimed in an NPR interview that she wrote her current novel, "Ripper" (Harper, $28.99), a mystery, as "a joke," that she "is not a fan" of the genre, and she'd rather write "serious" literature, focusing on "characters, relationships and research." Flaming words, indeed.

Allende's sweeping condescension of an entire genre brought many to the mystery's defense. My favorite response was from Val McDermid, bestselling author of the Tony Hill novels. In the UK's Guardian newspaper, McDermid said that for too long crime fiction has "taken it on the chin, muttering in corners and up our sleeves about how misunderstood we are...The great thing about this backlash (to Allende's statements) is that it's coming from readers as well as writers — it can't just be written off as wounded amour propre (Is that a bit too literary? Using French?)." Oh, snap. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

Speaking by phone from Antwerp earlier this week, MSO music director Edo de Waart talked about the upcoming season and his tremendous relief over the recovery of the Stradivarius. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Article

On Fridays I'm posting my thoughts on Lou Reed's solo albums, one album at a time in chronological order of release.

I remember how surprised I was, one day in the '80s, to find in the bins a Lou Reed album I had never seen before. A double-LP in those vinyl years, "Live in Italy" (1984) was recorded in late 1983 at stadium concerts in Rome and other Italian cities, with his working band of guitarist Robert Quine, bassist Fernando Saunders and drummer Fred Maher. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Blog Post(1)

Comedian and "Parks and Recreation" regular Aziz Ansari has added a 9:30 p.m. show May 19 at the Riverside Theater, after "overwhelming" ticket demand for his first show at 7 p.m., the venue's operators announced Friday.

Rico Love, a songwriter and producer who made hit songs for Beyonce, Usher, Kelly Rowland and others, comes back to Milwaukee, where he grew up, Saturday, to host a party in celebration of his recent success as a solo artist. Photo provided by artist management.| Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Blog Post

Don't look out the window. Just drive to Colectivo for a short musical interlude that could not just make your day but also make your weekend.

At 4 p.m., cast members from the Milwaukee Rep's "Woody Sez" will perform. Here's a sampling of what Leenya Rideout and David Finch performed in the Tap Milwaukee studio. | Feb. 21, 2014»Read Full Blog Post